People say things like @SGG: "don't give reply to low quality questions". Why shouldn't people be nice to them and try to teach them how to use the site just because they ask a simple question about HTML? Who’s to say that they aren’t experts at say C++ and Python? And this could make them a great asset to the site. Even if they are not then they could learn to become quite an expert in a topic.

Also another quote: “leave this program. Start with Hello world! program”. What sort of encouragement is that? We have all left comments that, looking back, hasn't been very nice to new users, but this has to CHANGE. I may be posting this as a Meta too. This is just one of many examples. There needs to be some sort of feature added to the site to help sort this. Like 10 reputation points for helping a new user get started. Let me know what you think.

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

4

Thank you for helping me use my delete votes. Seriously, this has been discussed to death before.
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Frédéric HamidiMay 1 '14 at 12:44

21

What alternative way do you have of keeping low quality questions from the site? Why do you think that encouraging low quality questions is a good thing for the long term health of the site?
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Oded♦May 1 '14 at 12:47

2

Also, as a first time Meta contributor, I suggest you read what meta is all about, in particular the section about voting.
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Oded♦May 1 '14 at 12:48

1

Its not encouraging, its helping teach them so they can ask good qualty ones in the future and it will also help the edit the one they have posted @Oded
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09stephenbMay 1 '14 at 12:49

16

Huh? If you give them an answer, they go away happy. They don't learn that low quality is not welcome. They don't learn to ask a good quality question.
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Oded♦May 1 '14 at 12:50

2

In my understanding, stackoverflow is not a tutorial site. I think that applies to posting, too. There are a lot of posts (both on-site and on the web) on how to ask good questions. There are check lists. If people cannot be bothered to use these easily accessible resources, why should I be inclined to take them by the hand?
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SchorschMay 1 '14 at 12:50

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@09stephenb the problem is there are thousands are garbage questions that come in each day and not nearly enough active users to hold the hand of everyone who doesn't bother to do their own basic research.
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psubsee2003May 1 '14 at 12:50

2

So your saying this site is just for those strong enough the get through the first few posts.
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09stephenbMay 1 '14 at 12:52

9

No, the site is for those that can be bothered to abide by its standards.
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SchorschMay 1 '14 at 12:53

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@09stephenb no, there are new users who take the time to write a good post. Everyone is a volunteer and has limited time available so you are effectively asking them to take more time to hold the hand of someone who doesn't respect the users of this site to learn the guidelines and customers, rather than answering questions for users who did bother to do their research and ask a good question.
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psubsee2003May 1 '14 at 12:53

2

There are ones that post good questions. Ones that post no effort ones and those who just don't know how to ask.
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09stephenbMay 1 '14 at 12:55

The flip side of your question is - "Why are new users of the sites not bothering to learn the guidelines before posting? Why are they not concerned with providing quality questions?". If we solve that, all is golden.
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Oded♦May 1 '14 at 12:56

7

@09stephenb if your example above (linked in your question) is your idea of a "good question", then we have a very different definition of a good question.
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psubsee2003May 1 '14 at 12:56

1

@09stephenb see the answer here and my earlier comments. There are not nearly enough dedicated users around to have them spend the necessary time to teach someone how to ask good questions. The new users have to come part of them way themselves.
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psubsee2003May 1 '14 at 13:02

17

Are you aware that before you ask a question, you have to go through an interstitial which explains what is required of questions? We're already trying to help guide a new user - if they've clicked through that without bothering to read it, what makes you think they'll take any notice of a less efficient way of guiding them?
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Jon SkeetMay 1 '14 at 13:35

5 Answers
5

Nice answer of yours to that question you refer to, but you must agree that you cannot put that much effort into every answer if questions like that are posted a couple of times per minute. And a waste of time as well, because you actually provided 8 answers, while probably only one of them is useful to the OP.

Not only on SO, but everywhere, you must be clear if you ask a question. If I go to a colleague with a question like that, they also send me away, telling me to get clear what my problem is first.

Define the boundaries of what you need to know and be as clear as possible so it takes as little effort as possible to answer the question.

And sometimes questions are hard to answer, because it's a complex problem, and that's fine. But for simple questions, there should be little or no effort to understand the question itself.

So I think "You need to ask clear questions" is a life lesson that everybody should have learned from their parents before they were even given access to the internet. And those who haven't learn the hard way by getting downvoted.

And 'hard way' isn't that hard. It's just a downvote. It means nothing. It's not personal, it's not legal binding, it won't cost money, and it won't get you fired. It's just a way to tell you that you made a mistake and a way for future visitors to separate separate chaff from wheat.

The vast numerical majority of people who post questions on SO will never be back to answer another question. They may ask a good question, they may ask a bad question, but they aren't here to 'join', they are here to 'ask'.

If we leave awful questions out there, those questions serve as broken windows that encourage more of the same from the next new person who reads the front page. For those few people who might come back, failing to sternly discourage awful questions just encourages them to repeat the offense.

Stackoverflow is not a club that is actively seeking new members or a church seeking to save every sinner. It's a volunteer effort to offer serious answers to serious questions. If we can't cut down the torrent of discouraging noise, the volunteers who answer the questions will (continue to) melt away.

I'm new to SO and collecting 160 points meant really participating in the past few weeks by asking solid questions and following every rule this site has. What I know now is that even when you follow every rule, there are ALWAYS some people that love to complain about your question.

Put it in a fiddle and share the link here.

Why is it in a fiddle? Your code should be right here?

Your code is too long.

Your code is too short.

Make your question short and snappy.

Your question is too short, explain more.

Put a link in here to your website to see what the problem is.

Why is there a link in here. Others won't be able to follow this any more after you fix it on your site.

That's a stupid question

I've read them all (and their mostly replies to newbies asking questions). The fact is, most of you are probably right, but the feedback SUCKS sometimes! There is positive feedback and shitty feedback. We all know the difference by now I believe. But unfortunately when some are high and mighty on top they feel they can take a dump on others, especially on newbies.

Do we have to reward people for not putting in a fair amount of energy and time into their question? No of course not and the reasons are well-known by now as some of you stated above. Do we e.g. tell them they need to rephrase their question so we can help them better? Yes, if that helps answering the question. But seriously guys, telling someone it's a stupid question. Well, I for one don't think there are ANY stupid questions anywhere, just stupid answers. And telling someone rephrase your question for whatever reason is a big difference from telling them it's a stupid question.

I started out as one of those that was just asking without giving any attention to providing any answers to other questions. As time passed by I participated more and answered questions and more participation followed. During this process I learned that some here have this elite feeling and have no shame in their way of communicating with some.

In conclusion: clear and positive communication is the answer here. It goes for the person that is asking, but ALSO for the person providing feedback in anyway (down-vote , up-vote , answer , flag or comment). Whether you are or not a club or church, at least have the decency to positively help or simply shut up and move on.

If you see someone post a comment that just says that a question is stupid, flag it as not constructive and move on. Such comments are very rare, and you have plenty of tools at your disposal for dealing with them. That said, there most certainly are stupid questions; that doesn't make it appropriate to post a comment like that, as it should be phrased constructively, but they do exist.
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ServyMay 1 '14 at 17:08

1

I'm not sure that your last paragraph is expressing what you mean it to express. In fact it seems to be self-contradictory.
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dmckeeMay 1 '14 at 17:38

We're happy to scare off new Users from posting questions like, "Here is my homework assignment, please do it for me." That's called cheating. This is especially the case if the answer to your specific question, if you'd bothered to describe it, would probably be found in another post on the site. These are the kinds of questions that typically receive the largest numbers of downvotes.

We also want to scare new Users from posting questions with long blocks of code, where the Users lack the decency to at least try and break the code down for the answerers.

If your question is clear, the code that causes you trouble is concise, your error is clearly described, and this isn't obviously in another place on the site, we don't bite.

For eons those of us who have participated on mailing lists, bulletin boards and other lists of every shape and size have tried to cultivate good questions in those communities. I have seen and have written way more than my fair share of RTFM or STFW answers because the questioner (who are often one and done, done desiring to join or contribute to the community) showed no incentive. I had often thrown this link, http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html (note the long revision history), to many - hoping that they would clarify and narrow their questions so that we, the volunteers, could provide solid answers.

I've had the same thing done to me because in my haste or because of a fundamental lack of understanding I have posted questions that would be considered "lacking". I've had questions closed. I have received down-votes. I have also adopted an attitude that I would leave those dogs on the porch (rather than deleting so they couldn't suffer more) for all to see because ultimately....

...I learned something.

A lot of folks here have been good to posters asking low quality questions. They point out that the question lacks information tries to point the poster in the right direction. Others are more apt to down-vote and walk away because that very action should be enough to say to the poster that the question needs work. I do think that down-voters should be required to post a comment on why they voted the way that they did though, giving that poster more information to go on. Personally I am less likely to down-vote, preferring only to leave a comment sharing a point or two about what the poster can do to improve their question.

Hopefully then somebody will learn something. That is what SO is all about.

I do agree with most things that you say, apart from the 'required comment when downvoting' part. I think in most cases at least someone will post such a comment, and other downvoters might just show their agreement by downvoting (and maybe upvoting the comment). Also, questions can be closed in which case there is a reason. I rarely see a question that is not (going to be) closed, has no comments and does have 5 or more downvotes, so I think that requirement would solve a non-existent problem.
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GolezTrolMay 1 '14 at 13:39

I agree with you on that, I just voiced it wrong. My thought is that the poster should get some info about the down-vote since they likely not read what goes on here. I have seen questions with 3 or 4 DV's, no comments and the question never gets closed. (More recently than before.)
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Jay BlanchardMay 1 '14 at 13:48

1

Yeah, I must admit I see that as well. More questions seem abandoned. When I just joined SO (about 3 years ago) there was also a large volume of questions already, but most of them were closed or answered pretty fast. Maybe the volume (of low quality questions? Maybe even of total questions) is just too big, and there are too few people left to moderate the site. By moderating, I mean doing the meta stuff that you and I do as well. I used to just pick question from the front page to answer or to moderate, but it seems an impossible job nowadays.
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GolezTrolMay 1 '14 at 13:57